A River Runs Through Them

Read their story below

Family dinner is a joyous, loud affair for Besjana Guri. At home in Tirana, the capital of Albania, four generations of her family come together as often as they can – grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and kids – to eat from a big table of delicious foods: salads, meats, burek (tasty stuffed pastries) and cheeses. It’s an Albanian tradition that someone will propose a toast – glasses of good wine or the fruit liqueur rakia raised to celebrate someone’s birthday, marriage or other happy news.

In March 2023, Besjana, who is known to her friends and family simply as Besi, was surprised to find herself the subject of the toast. Her family wanted to honour the part she had played in the recent declaration of the Vjosa Wild River National Park, when Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama signed official paperwork at a ceremony on the banks of the river, in front of TV cameras and journalists from around the world. For someone who has spent over a decade, a third of her life, working to protect the Vjosa river, through challenges, setbacks and occasional victories, it was a moment for Besi to catch her breath and consider what her work means for people in Albania.

Her NGO partner Olsi Nika has collaborated with her at EcoAlbania since the start, when they were both practically kids, in their mid-20s. For him, the declaration also felt like a culmination of his work up to that point and of the challenges and sacrifices that have peppered the last 12 years. His four-year old son Aos carries a part of this work with him – Aoos is the name for the Greek section of the wild river. And while his family lives in Tirana, Olsi takes Aos and his baby sister Helia Sofi on the two-hour drive to the Vjosa as often as he can, to explore together the different parts of the river and the unique beauty of each section.

That Besi and Olsi got here at all is remarkable. Neither of them set out to be an environmental activist, less still an activist focusing on a singular topic – the mighty Vjosa river that runs free for over 270 kilometres, through Greece and Albania.

Besi knew the Vjosa from childhood trips and had always loved being out in nature. Olsi spent family vacations at the beach, living close to the coast, in the south of Albania, and admits that he’s still a sea person at heart.

Driving home from his university in Tirana, where Olsi was studying environmental and conservational biology, the Vjosa was always in his peripheral vision, as the road followed the course of the river for much of the journey. On finishing his studies, Olsi bought a stretch of land and planted olive trees and fruit trees, working the land and waiting to uncover his purpose.

Meeting the organisers of the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign – seasoned international environmentalists Ulrich Eichelmann from RiverWatch, and Annette Spangenberg and Gabriel Schwaderer from EuroNatur – was a pivotal moment for Besi and Olsi.

One of Olsi’s university professors recommended him to the Save the Blue Heart of Europe river protection campaign and he was employed as the Albanian coordinator, working at NGO PPNEA. It was a leap of faith – he admits that until this point, he barely understood what a dam was, or why they are so devastating to wild rivers.

Besi soon joined the team, to support him, working in communications. She had no experience and remembers googling “How to write a press release” in her first days. And she certainly didn’t anticipate her future self at the forefront of an environmental organisation – for the generations of Albanian women before her, growing up in a society of political unrest and national isolationism, taking such a public stance would have been unthinkable.

Leaving their salaried roles at the NGO PPNEA and starting new organisation EcoAlbania, the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign organisers offered them the opportunity to become the Albanian partner for the campaign, with the singular purpose of defending the Vjosa from the threat of 45 small hydropower projects planned on the river. Still in their mid-twenties, they would now be directly challenging the influence of powerful politicians and businesspeople. Naivety shielded them from what would have been a daunting prospect anywhere, but especially in Albania where there is very little culture of civil society and those who seek to make money from damaging nature often act with impunity.

In the early days Besi and Olsi took a journey along the Vjosa with the international environmental campaigners. Even in the pouring rain they could see for themselves the scale of the opportunity and the threat.

One of their first meetings was with the major of Qeserat, an area of the Vjosa planned for damming. Sitting in his office, overlooking the Vjosa, he told them he saw the dam as a positive development for the community. Maybe cafes and restaurants could open on the lake that would be created. Olsi took a chance and asked him to take a walk with them on the banks of the river. There they explained what the real impact of the dam would be – the river would be damaged forever and local people would lose the benefits they had taken from the Vjosa for generations. They were successful in opening his eyes and he became one of their closest, long-standing allies.

Since then, they have met so many people on their journey. When Besi thinks about the best things that have come out of their work she always goes back to the people. They have spoken all over the world, from global NGO events to Patagonia stores and even in front of the permanent committee of the Berne Convention. And they have accompanied journalists from the most prestigious news organizations in the world on tours of the Vjosa – probably hundreds of journalists over the last decade, Besi and Olsi travelling to the Vjosa up to 20 times a year. Every new person Besi meets in her work gives her added strength – from the diverse perspectives they bring, the offers of help they give and the way she can see the Vjosa changing them, as they begin to appreciate what is at stake and commit to protecting it.

Wherever their work takes them, Besi and Olsi understand that their work matters – across the Balkan Peninsula where 3,400 hydropower projects threaten the last wild rivers of Europe, and beyond. Activists tell them that the Vjosa Wild River National Park declaration was a tipping point for river action internationally – suddenly ambitious protection became possible.

Yet their most important impact remains at home – with Besi’s family dinners, Olsi’s trips along the Vjosa with Aos and Helia Sofi, and with all the Albanian people they meet who now realise what a unique, beautiful gift they have in the Vjosa, and a gift that needs their protection. It’s clear to Besi and Olsi that this is their life’s mission – advocating and campaigning for the Vjosa’s wild future and guiding people into the movement with them, from Tirana city folk who may never have seen the Vjosa up close to the rural communities who live and work in harmony with the river.

After the Vjosa Wild River National Park declaration, people came up to them thinking their work must be finished, saying “What will you do now? Will you be jobless?”, but their answer was always: “No, this is just one chapter. The work will never be done – critical eyes and defenders of this river will always be needed.” That commitment had once felt overwhelming but not anymore. Now they have reached acceptance that this is their way of life – Vjosa needs you all in. Besi’s daughter Rea is seven and sometimes she wishes her mum didn’t have to travel to the Vjosa so often. But Besi is clear. I’m doing this for her, she says. I’m showing her something important that she can keep with her as she grows. We’ll make her proud.